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Too many damn restaurants in the South End, some residents say in fight against a Dunkin' Donuts
By adamg on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 8:10pm
Voices for Fair Commercial Development in the South End is fighting a Dunkin' Donuts planned for 655 Tremont St., in part because:
It is UNFAIR to add another restaurant to our neighborhood, which already has a high density of food establishments and associated issues.
Also:
This MEGA project would significantly impact the character of the South End historic district and the vitality of its existing businesses.
The group, however, is not arguing the Dunkin' Donuts would lead to gentrification.
Via ArchBoston.org.
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Comments
Voices for Fair Commercial Development in the South End ?
With a name like that, the jokes really write themselves.
"It is UNFAIR to add another restaurant to our neighborhood, which already has a high density of food establishments and associated issues."
Yeah! We'll tell you which restaurants can open here in the vibrant South End.
Sounds like some people are in a state of perpetual economic jealousy there.
Rentrification?
Actually I think if you get Dunks moving in you've gone straight through gentrification and come out the other side. You need to have something just a bit more hoity-toity to keep up appearances. Dunks indicates any old riff-raff comin in for their regulahs.
Wonder if they would also oppose a
MEGA Starbucks in the same location.
There is a mega Starbucks
It,s but a single block from the proposed Dunks. So far as I know, it faced no opposition. This is entirely a "not that kind of business" in my backyard argument.
What's the big deal . . . .
. . . Wellesley has a Dunks on Washington Street. Just make em buy a wooden sign a dull the colors.
what issues?
Another food establishment causes issues? Like what? Having a variety of places to choose when you want food or drink is bad?
South End is mostly overpriced fancy restaurants, and not much else. Frankly, when people ask me to recommend places to eat, I'd send them to Allston over South End anyday.
They really need to get over the "historic district" bullshit. Most of that area is landfill. Putting artificial restrictions on buildings just hurts growth and reduces economic diversity.
not historic?
I don't understand what isn't historic about the South End (just because it was built on landfill). Is the turn of the 20th century not long enough ago for you?
Most of the planet is historic
In that it was around long ago.
At some point we need to balance our nostalgia for the past, preservation and aesthetic concerns, against the need for economic development.
That means, quite often, new uses for old places. And artificial restrictions on development just limit growth when taken to extremes. Obsessions with a particular color of brick are just as irrational as front lawn requirements, and potentially just as damaging.
This is not to say that there aren't good uses of historical preservation. In the past, much good was lost -- including the famous NY Penn Station which spawned the entire preservationist movement. But we've moved to the other extreme, where everything is suddenly too sacred, and we're unable to part with the past.
Can you imagine a world where even the prosaic suburban cookie-cutter development and strip malls become "historic zones" that we must preserve? Disaster.
The significance of designating buildings as historic landmarks is diminished by over-use. Save it for the truly deserving cases.
South Enders are Vile.
These people would jump on the opportunity for some fancy "bistro" with a vaguley French-sounding name that served truffle-infused poemgranate rinds to move in there.
Dunkin's ain't fancy enough for them, plain and simple.
If they wanted to live away from a commercial block, they should have saved more money and bought something on one of the side streets. The prices they paid for their condo's reflect the fact that they live on a busy commercial block.
These people are the first to say that they moved to the South End for its diversity, but they would never dream of going somepace where they would actually have to interact or bump elbows with that diversity. Dunkin's traditionally attracts a more lower to middle class clientele than these people would want anything to do with and that frightens them. Probably reminds them from whence they came, before they became so fancy.
Amen!
Best comment ever!
broad brush
I'm no neighborhood provincial, but it's a wee bit of a generalization to call all South End residents vile, no? Speaking for myself as someone that lives in the South End, I agree the neighborhood needs precisely zero more overpriced brunch spots with shi-shi one-word names or places to buy $10 drinks, but *no* neighborhood needs *another* freakin' Dunks.
Maybe it says something for the inflation of rents in the neighborhood that a huge company like that is the only one willing to take a stab at that space. . . gentrification eating itself FTW!
Agreed
And it's really a shame so many readers thought this attack on all the residents of an entire neighborhood was praiseworthy.